Midton
25-03-07, 23:56
Friday night was my first night dive, had my Beaver Plasma LED torch charged up and ready to use in anger (only used it in daylight before for looking under rocks and suchlike).
Met Tomy2Tums and Loudy at A frames at back of 6, beautiful evening, clear skies, sun has just disappeared behind the hills opposite (known as "The Duke of Argyll's Bowling Green", don't ask me why!), gentle breeze from the north zephyring its way down the loch.
Introductions complete, we start to kit up. The expected ribald comments were made about my delicately understated dry-suit ("Here, is that the sun coming back up again? Oh, no! It's just Al's drysuit! etc etc). Kitted up, we go down onto the beach (tide has dropped noticeably while we were kitting up), buddy check each other then confirm the dive plan.
All happy, torches on, wade in, down we go. Vis almost zero for first 5 metres or so (very high tide, so carrying away a lot of silt on the ebb), almost lost sight of T2T and Loudy, thought, "What a tit! First evening/night dive and I lose my buddies in the first minute!" :o Turned off my torch to help me see other lights better and picked up T2T's torch and Loudy's strobe dimly visible in the (2m away) far distance. Happy me, onwards and downwards! :D Once below 5m vis improved a fair bit, probably about 5m as we headed down. It would probably have stayed about 5m had the one-man silt machine not stirred things up with a clumsy turn-round (sorry guys!). :o
On the way down we passed a squattie with the longest arms I have ever seen, they were enormous compared to the size of its body.
The usual sea-life abounded, lots of (?) peacock worms (?) (longish tubes with wavy tendrils poking out the end), loads of crabs, couple of small flounder, etc etc.
Fortunately no visit by Beryl! With lowish vis and in the dark I was quite glad that I didn't have to meet sea-life bigger than me!
We spent a bit of time about the 18m mark exploring the frames, vis slowly decreasing since the longer we explored the more we (I)stirred up. I found it a bit disconcerting at first not having a "light is up, dark is down" point of reference. At one point I wondered why everyone was going back down again, then thought, "no, it's not them, it's me!", dumped some air and found the other two "coming back up to meet me again"!
Once I got over the "concentrate really hard cos night's trickier than daytime" bit, I found it very relaxing.
The one snag of the evening was to discover that the seam had started to perish along the outer edge of my right boot, by the time we came ashore I was decidedly damp/soggy/soaked from the waist down. I've got an old-fashioned style undersuit and it wicks sea-water FAR too well! Given that the water temp was fairly low (well it was Loch Long in March!), I decided not to go for second dive as I would probably have had to abort after about 10 minutes or else risk mild hypothermia.
I stayed with the lads (Snorkel 123 had arrived by this point and was waiting in the tour bus for us to surface), drinking tea and chatting, until their surface interval was over then packed up and headed for home as they went for a second dive.
Thorougly enjoyed my first taste of diving in the dark, want to do more of it (once my suit comes back with new boots!) :D
Apologies for a longish account of a night dive at A-frames (which has been dived so often by so many), but as it was my first night dive I thought I would share my experience with you, it might bring back memories of first night dives.
Cheers to Loudy and T2T for taking good care of a night-dive newbie, see you again some time!
Al.
Met Tomy2Tums and Loudy at A frames at back of 6, beautiful evening, clear skies, sun has just disappeared behind the hills opposite (known as "The Duke of Argyll's Bowling Green", don't ask me why!), gentle breeze from the north zephyring its way down the loch.
Introductions complete, we start to kit up. The expected ribald comments were made about my delicately understated dry-suit ("Here, is that the sun coming back up again? Oh, no! It's just Al's drysuit! etc etc). Kitted up, we go down onto the beach (tide has dropped noticeably while we were kitting up), buddy check each other then confirm the dive plan.
All happy, torches on, wade in, down we go. Vis almost zero for first 5 metres or so (very high tide, so carrying away a lot of silt on the ebb), almost lost sight of T2T and Loudy, thought, "What a tit! First evening/night dive and I lose my buddies in the first minute!" :o Turned off my torch to help me see other lights better and picked up T2T's torch and Loudy's strobe dimly visible in the (2m away) far distance. Happy me, onwards and downwards! :D Once below 5m vis improved a fair bit, probably about 5m as we headed down. It would probably have stayed about 5m had the one-man silt machine not stirred things up with a clumsy turn-round (sorry guys!). :o
On the way down we passed a squattie with the longest arms I have ever seen, they were enormous compared to the size of its body.
The usual sea-life abounded, lots of (?) peacock worms (?) (longish tubes with wavy tendrils poking out the end), loads of crabs, couple of small flounder, etc etc.
Fortunately no visit by Beryl! With lowish vis and in the dark I was quite glad that I didn't have to meet sea-life bigger than me!
We spent a bit of time about the 18m mark exploring the frames, vis slowly decreasing since the longer we explored the more we (I)stirred up. I found it a bit disconcerting at first not having a "light is up, dark is down" point of reference. At one point I wondered why everyone was going back down again, then thought, "no, it's not them, it's me!", dumped some air and found the other two "coming back up to meet me again"!
Once I got over the "concentrate really hard cos night's trickier than daytime" bit, I found it very relaxing.
The one snag of the evening was to discover that the seam had started to perish along the outer edge of my right boot, by the time we came ashore I was decidedly damp/soggy/soaked from the waist down. I've got an old-fashioned style undersuit and it wicks sea-water FAR too well! Given that the water temp was fairly low (well it was Loch Long in March!), I decided not to go for second dive as I would probably have had to abort after about 10 minutes or else risk mild hypothermia.
I stayed with the lads (Snorkel 123 had arrived by this point and was waiting in the tour bus for us to surface), drinking tea and chatting, until their surface interval was over then packed up and headed for home as they went for a second dive.
Thorougly enjoyed my first taste of diving in the dark, want to do more of it (once my suit comes back with new boots!) :D
Apologies for a longish account of a night dive at A-frames (which has been dived so often by so many), but as it was my first night dive I thought I would share my experience with you, it might bring back memories of first night dives.
Cheers to Loudy and T2T for taking good care of a night-dive newbie, see you again some time!
Al.